Grub Watch
by signelchan
Summary: Thanks to the ectobiological studies of John and Jade, the trolls who have come to Earth are learning about their new breeding capabilities. What does this mean for them? It means they now have the tedious task of watching eggs...which is better than the other method of reproduction that has been researched.
1. Eggs

"We're on grub watch now."

Ever since Kanaya had said those five words, holding up the three tiny eggs, all that had mattered in Eridan's life was keeping the precious little things from dying. They first required constant attention, needing to be kept at ninety degrees in temperature and rotated exactly seventeen degrees around every twenty-six and a half minutes. Since any and all machines they could find would only guarantee a rotation of roughly twenty degress and could get no more specific in time than every half hour, mechanical intervention was out of the question.

Thus the cycle of noon-to-midnight shifts started, and for three weeks they followed it almost religiously, because those three eggs needed to survive and they had already seemingly been to Hell and back just to get their hands on them, so they weren't going to sacrifice their survival for normal sleep hours. After those three weeks, the eggs had roughly doubled in size, but were still ridiculously small, and the next stage of their development was to change that. They still required being kept at the high temperature, but every four hours, fifty-nine minutes, and three seconds (the exactness of this slightly disturbed Eridan, but Kanaya assured him that it was normal for instructions given from an otherworldly entity and converted to Earth measurements to be this weird), they needed to be sprayed with a mixture that could only be described as revolting: a ground puree of worms, grapes, and cucumbers, with the added flavor of fish once a day.

By the time that they were allowed to stop with that, they had been working on raising these eggs for nearly two months, and they were both losing patience with the process. The third step, thankfully, was much easier, requiring the eggs to be kept at a lower temperature, if only by five degrees, but they had to be put into direct sunlight for exactly forty-five minutes over each day. That sounded easy enough in theory, but in the dead of winter, like it was by this point, that much sunlight was hard to come by.

This was when they bought the natural light lamp, knowing it could very well mean life or death for their little grubs. "It'll be fine," Kanaya had said when they had to resort to that lamp. "It's not like the people who made this thing would have been lying in their product description." She then found herself horrified the next day when two of the little eggs had shrunk back down to their starting size (they had roughly been the size of basketballs before this) and had turned a very revolting brown and black.

With just one egg left, it became very important to them to keep it alive at any costs. It was with a great amount of joy that the last step of the process just required being kept at room temperature, with only two continuous hours of higher heat at any point in the day. Since the natural light lamp had killed its two siblings, it wasn't going to be subjected to that for the last month-long stretch of its incubation process, but instead a heat lamp bought from the local pet store.

The very heat lamp that had just had its bulb blow out on the last day it was needed.

"You're kiddin', right?" Eridan asked, kicking the wall before looking out the window hoping the snowstorm would break apart before nightfall and maybe the sun would come out so the little egg could get at least some heat from the sun. "Of all the days for it ta break, wwhy today?"

"Because something out there is testing us." Kanaya, her head still shaking in disbelief of the horrible turn of events, fiddled with the thermometer, which was could go no higher than it was programmed. "First the light lamp kills two of them, then the landlord decides that we are keeping our apartment too hot, even if it is for the purpose of extraterrestrial reproduction, and now this. I can't believe we didn't think to buy an extra bulb."

"It said on the box that it wwould last for up ta six wweeks!"

"Yes, and the box for the natural light lamp said that it would simulate actual sunlight. You can't trust what a box says." She took her hands from the thermometer and walked over to the little table where the egg was resting. "However, I have an idea."

Eridan looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "Tell me," he said, "wwhat, exactly, your idea is."

"It needs two hours of higher heat. The oven has higher heat. We stick it in the oven, and problem solved." Crossing her arms over her chest, Kanaya grinned, but Eridan rather disgustedly sighed in response. "Yeah, bad idea. Well, water's out of the question, so no hot bath for it. We could just hope for the best, I guess..."

"No! The best wwon't be good enough for it! Wwe havve ta try harder!" He kicked the wall again and sat down on the couch, burying his face in his hands. "Wwe can't lose this one too!"

"We aren't going to lose it. Now hold on, I'll be right back." She looked at the egg, muttered something to herself, and ran down the hall into their bedroom. When she came back about five minutes later, she had multiple blankets draped over herself and was wearing a ratty old shirt many sizes too big for her small frame. "I have another idea."

He took one look at everything she had and laughed. "Wwhat kind of idea required raidin' the closet for all that?"

"Well, I was thinking about how this is so unlike how human children are nurtured before they are effectively hatched, and then it hit me. It's just for two hours, so why not attempt to carry the egg in a manner similar to how a human woman would carry her child?" Kanaya set all of the blankets down and gingerly picked up the egg, which was slightly larger than the basketball-size it had been when the other two were lost. Then, leaning against a wall for support, she carefully situated the egg underneath the shirt, tucking the bottom edge of the shirt into her pants to hold it. In order to stand up, she had to hold onto the sides of the egg, and when she was standing as upright as she possibly could, it looked very much like she was a human with child, minus the fact that she had gray skin and horns.

The sight of her clutching the egg made Eridan laugh, and he had to grab his rarely-used phone and take a picture of it, which he then sent to every single one of his contacts. "Okay, you're famous, swweetie, noww take it out a there and put it back wwhere it belongs."

"Nope, this is where it's staying for the next two hours. Now be a darling, Eri, and get those blankets." Moving as fast as she could, but having to accommodate for the extra weight that was throwing off her normally perfect sense of balance, Kanaya quite literally waddled to the couch, while Eridan jumped up and grabbed the stack of blankets she had put on the floor. When she sat down, she said, "Now drape those over the egg. We have to keep it warm."

"Couldn't wwe just, I don't knoww, put it under the blankets wwithout invvolvvin' you?" His question earned him a very displeased look in response. "Okay, okay, wwhatever you wwant, Kan. I'll just put these on you, and in twwo hours I'll take them off. Fair?"

She nodded, but smiled as she watched him carefully drape her and the egg with each blanket. "In two hours we'll have this little guy to take care of, I bet. That's why I want to be here with it, so I know if it's hatching or not."

"Wwait, hatchin'? This is it?" Eridan stopped with the blankets and grabbed his phone, sending out another message to all of his contacts, this one stating his excitement that by the end of the day, all his grub dreams would be coming true.

* * *

"Karkitty, look! Your phone, it's ringing! Can I answer it, please?" Nepeta, not even bothering to wait for the answer that the troll driving the car was to give her, grabbed the phone from the cupholder when it rested and opened the message waiting on it. "Oh my goodness, it's from Eridan! It's a," she laughed, "really funny picture of Kanaya. You'll have to see it when we get to the store."

Under his breath, Karkat said something about not caring about what the fish douche had to show him, but out loud he simply said. "That's nice, I'll definitely look at it later. And thanks for refraining from the fucking cat puns."

"No purroblem, Karkitty!" she replied, before erupting into giggles that made Karkat angrier than the pun had. This giggle fit lasted roughly five minutes, and was ended when the phone rang again. "Oh! I'll get that for you!" She checked the second message, and gasped loudly and comically when she had finished reading it. "Their grub's gonna hatch today! It's about time, Karkitty! I'm so happy for them!"

"Oh, great. Exactly what this planet needs. Another troll." Karkat grumbled, focusing on trying to find a parking spot more than the excited girl in the seat next to him. "Why they thought that was a good idea, I have no clue, but it's not."

Nepeta's jaw dropped, and she reached over to Karkat and playfully touched one of his horns, causing him to nearly run into a parked car. "Be happy for them, just this once! I mean, with this amazing news, now we all know it's pawsible to create grubs that can be hatched here on Earth, and that's the greatest news ever!" She put her hand back on her side of the car and excitedly waited for the car to be parked. "I mean, now that this worked out, maybe some other trolls can have some grubs..."

"No. I know what that means." Without even looking at her, he knew she was batting her eyelashes and making a cutesy face at him in an attempt to sway his opinion, but he would stand firm in his belief that they were not going to have any grubs in the foreseeable future. He punched the steering wheel and, after taking the keys from the ignition and grabbing his phone from Nepeta's lap, got out of the car and started walking towards the store's entrance. Nepeta, slightly upset that he blew her off when she was having a moment, jumped out of the car and chased after him, screaming to remember to lock the car, which he did.

"Why are you being so grumpy today, Karkitty? Did someone make you mad?" she asked, bounding in front of him. "We're at the pet store! We're gonna see all the cute little kitties and we're gonna get one and I'm purretty excited for this!"

He grabbed both of her shoulders and stopped her in her tracks. "Stop with the puns, they're not cute. And, whatever you do, do not make a big deal about getting a fucking cat. I mean, yes, you're finally getting one. Four years on this planet and someone finally lets you have a damn cat. Well, sorry that you chose to live with Equius for most of that time. Him and his hoofbeast farm."

"They're called horses." She wiggled out of his grasp and ran into the store, leaving him and all of his grumbling behind. When he caught back up to her, she was plastered up against the glass separating the cats from the rest of the store. "And one of those cats will be mine!"

"Yeah, yeah, you play with them. I'll go get the supplies and stuff we need to take care of it. When I get back, I hope you've decided which one you're going to get." He lightly kissed her on the cheek and walked away, leaving her stunned that he actually expressed some kind of affection while in public. On his way to the cat food aisle, he decided to check out that picture that Nepeta had been laughing about, a decision that did not disappoint. The sight of the troll woman with the egg shoved up her shirt made a smile form on his lips, something rare.

However, the smile did fade fast, when Karkat got a good look at the prices of the cat food brands that he had been told to pick from. "I'm not fucking made of money," he muttered at one point, before finding the cheapest brand of those he was allowed to pick from. "Damn cat is going to cost more to feed than it costs to feed me." The same grumbling attitude came around when he got to the litter and litter boxes, as well as the toys, which Nepeta insisted they have. "It doesn't need a house! It'll already be living in one, so what's the point of buying it a smaller one?"

He wasn't even sure how much time had passed when he went back to the cat enclosure, pushing a cart full of all the things he had been told to pick out. Inside the enclosure, Nepeta was standing in between two of the cages, and it looked like she was deep in conversation with the cats that resided in them. He sighed, as it was very apparent that she had yet to choose a cat, so he left the cart where it was and walked inside the enclosure.

"Oh hi Karkitty, I was just telling Fluffy and Kitty here that I have to pick between them. They're both so cute, though! Can we get both?"

Without even thinking, he shook his head and told her no. He was thankful that he did, after looking at their prices. "Hundred bucks a cat? Nepeta, they're way too expensive to get both. Just pick one and that's that." She looked between the two cages a bit, before pressing up against the cage that contained the gray-and-white cat named Fluffy. "Is that it? That the one you want?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Fluffy's just an indoor cat, so I think that means she'll sit with me and talk about life and stuff. She'll be purrfect for us!" Karkat winced at the pun, but didn't say anything about it, instead choosing to leave and go to the cashier, who then had to call one of the other store workers to get the cat for them. By the time that ordeal was over, and Nepeta had the gray cat in a box that she carried proudly, Karkat was rather tired of the pet store and most definitely not looking forward to paying all this money for the sake of the cat.

"Thank you so much!" she literally purred as they left the store, her cat joining in the thanks. "Me and Fluffy are going to be the greatest friends ever, and it's all thanks to you!" He didn't outright accept the praise, ignoring her to put all the stuff in the back of the car, but once he closed the back hatch, he grabbed her face and planted a quick kiss on her lips.

"Don't thank me again. Now get in the car. We need to take your cat home before it decides my car is its personal litter box. I did not just spend thirty bucks on one of those for it to shit in my car."

* * *

It had been almost six hours since John had gotten home. And, as he was shocked and rather sad to find out, it was about six hours until his best friend, darling sister, and workmate would be leaving for a couple days. "It's just to check up on one of our experiments. I booked the flight the moment I could when I heard that our human-troll breeding project had hit a snag, and I was not going to stand by here and let the poor thing die." Jade explained, when she saw John and told him that she'd be leaving. "I know you just got home from visiting your girl and all, but work has to come first, not family."

"Work, yeah. Work comes first." John, rather distractedly said, fiddling with his phone and looking at the picture of Kanaya that had been sent to it. "We'll be needing to pay a visit to the Northeast here pretty soon. Gonna have a little grub there that we need to check up on."

Jade smiled, giving a small nod. "Yeah, we sure are. Can't believe that we managed to create those eggs through all your ectobiology stuff." She started down the flight of stairs that led to the basement and John followed her, entering the lab that they shared. "We've got two more buckets full of genetic material to turn into eggs, thanks to that success. I can't believe the trolls actually trust us with the stuff."

"Why shouldn't they? We grew their mother grub to the best of our ability—it's small, yeah, but it turns buckets into eggs, doesn't it?—and then we learned the specific directions to create grubs from the tiny eggs." Looking into the glass cage where the mother grub, a rather ugly creature, in his scientific opinion, was kept, he smirked. "And it's completely legal for us to do all this testing. The government wants nothing to do with the trolls. Let them be citizens, we say. Let them live here and have semi-normal lives according to human customs, we say. And then they say that's okay, as long as they don't all live together and we have a good way of communicating with them."

"But it's weird that they trust _us_. I mean, yeah, we know what we're doing, but we're just two humans who are good at ectobiology. And I'm not even really that good at it. I just take care of the experiments." Jade looked at her phone, which had been buzzing with the influx of messages on it. "The situation down in Texas is getting worse. I'll go pack my stuff now, I guess." She saluted her brother and went back up the stairs, leaving John alone in this lab he called his home.

Instead of following her upstairs, he walked over to a map that he had hanging on his wall. A bunch of pushpins were on it, each marking the location of someone important. In Washington was his house, marked with green and blue pins to symbolize him and Jade, who lived together to maintain this lab. Down in Southern California was a gray pin with a green one, and there was a blue one not too far from it in Arizona. Karkat, Nepeta, and Equius, he knew.

Over in Texas was a red pin, with a teal one next to it, but that positioning was just temporary. John knew that, in reality, the only reason Dave and Terezi were even anywhere close together right now was for the experiment Jade was performing, one that was going rather wrong from what he understood of it. Backtracking a little, in the location of glitzy and glamorous Las Vegas, a purple pin was placed, representing Gamzee, who really should have been stuck with someone but decided that there was best for him. Skip across the country and then, in Appalachia, in the middle of absolute nowhere, were a blue and a brown pin. Vriska and Tavros. Why those two picked there out of all the places to be, he didn't even know.

Florida, home of nothing but sun and water, was where the pink and yellow pins of Feferi and Sollux were, a really obvious choice on their part. Up the coast a ways, into the coastal part of Virginia, was where John wished he could spend more time, where Rose's pink pin was. He might have just gotten back from seeing her there, but he still had the desire to leave this ectobiology life behind and join her there. Up the coast more and into New York City were a purple and green pin pair. Eridan and Kanaya were probably the greatest couple of trolls living anywhere, and they had adapted to human life fastest, but when the opportunity arose, they answered the call for an experimental grub.

Below this map was a smaller one, one solely of Europe, where a red pin marked the location of Aradia, who normally resided somewhere in the Great Lakes region, but was abroad in Paris. She chose to take that vacation when her normal house buddy, Terezi, chose to take up the edgy human-troll experiment. John smiled at his maps, before hearing one of the machines across the room making a whirring noise. He turned his attention to that, the hourly report of the progress of all the things happening inside the lab. As nothing was really being created, there was nothing of note, and he simply placed the progress report in the recycling bin.

It was about this time that his stomach growled, and he was faced with the memory that he hadn't eaten since before he got on the plane to leave Rose's. Ascending the stairs, he was too preoccupied with deciding what he was going to eat to notice Jade dashing down the exact same staircase until she was right ahead of him. He looked up, she looked down, and their faces met in the most accidental of kisses. It took a few seconds for John to realize that it wasn't Rose he was kissing, and he pulled away the moment he realized that.

"Well, good bye to you too, then!" a rather chipper Jade said. "Or, I guess, hello, since neither of us really are leaving right now." She was blushing, but she didn't apologize or anything for the kiss, instead choosing to squeeze past him and down into the lab, while John continued his journey to the kitchen.

Normally, when Jade was in a hurry to get to the lab, she was just going down there to stare at all the things her and John had accomplished in the four years the trolls had been living on Earth. This time, she came down to grab all the things she would need for her journey to (hopefully) right the wrongs of the experiment she was conducting. These were all things she knew how to use well; after all, John had taught her what did what. She sighed dreamily just thinking about how amazing her brother had been with her while he showed her all the ropes here.

Another sigh escaped her mouth as she picked up one of the really cool things she knew how to use, a knife with a special camera on its very tip to show exactly what was being cut into. When John had first let her use that, she was cutting up a steak dinner for them, and it was honestly one of the greater moments of her life. She had to take it with her, just in case she needed to administer some emergency surgery on a troll. Because, as she fully knew, it was within her rights to do that.

Instead of being disgusted at the thought of cutting up one of her troll friends, her thoughts drifted to whether or not John would be proud of her for being able to do it. After all, as he always reminded her, the human-troll breeding process was her experiment, and she was most likely going to have to do the dirty work in it. She liked having to do things when he told her to, just because she was a good sister and good sisters did exactly what their ectobiologist brothers told them to do.

She just really wished that they weren't siblings, or that she and Rose could switch lives or something. How she ached to be loved by John like the blond on the other side of the country was! Her whole existence from the moment the trolls came to Earth was serving John, and she really just wanted him to love her. But nope, the whole being ecto-siblings thing shot that in the face.

"Jade?" she heard John calling from the top of the stairs. "Jade, get to the stairway. Big news." Big news? Her mind wandered to what it could be. Was he going to admit that he loved her, or that he wanted to be with her and only her, or what? She quickly got to the doorway where the stairs led up, and when she looked, she saw her brother standing there, eating a sandwich. "Oh, there you are. I didn't hear you squealing, so I figured you hadn't checked your phone. Go on. Look."

Her phone? She slid it open and saw all the unread messages from Dave, each one probably detailing, in rap form, exactly what was happening in his apartment. But there was one, at the top of the list, that was from someone else, and she knew what it was going to say without reading it, based on the look John was giving her.

She ran up the stairs squealing in excitement, arms outstretched to give her brother a hug.

* * *

Two hours exactly had passed, and Eridan was removing the blankets and quickly and carefully as he could. Kanaya, having been sitting underneath them, was ordering him to move faster, that it was painfully hot under there, and the egg could die if it stayed warm any longer. Each time she'd mention the egg, he would speed up a bit, and when the blankets were finally all gone, and she had gotten the large egg out from under her shirt, they both stared at it.

"Wwell, noww wwhat? It's not hatchin' yet."

She stood up and sighed, walking over to the table where the egg belonged and placing it back on its little stand. "We wait, I guess. It's been long enough for it to be fully grown, so maybe it's just preparing itself for hatching." She grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled it away from her body, looking down at her sweat-drenched chest. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go change into dryer clothes. Watch the egg while I'm gone, okay, Eri?"

He said he would, and crept closer to it, just admiring the fact that it was still this large and its off-white with green and purple splotches coloration was still intact. Then he noticed the first crack, small and insignificant, but a crack. Then, as he stared at it, the crack lengthened, spreading across the side of the egg. "Uh, Kan, please come back!" he shouted down the hall. "It's startin' ta hatch!" Not one for jokes, Kanaya came running at his call, her shirt in her hands. As she stood there watching the egg alongside Eridan, she made sure to put it on, but her attention was solely on the miracle happening before her eyes.

As they watched, more cracks began appearing, forever ruining the beautifully speckled shell, but allowing for the life inside to be unleashed. And, after the cracks ruined the structural soundness of the shell, the top half fell off, and the egg began to fall to its side. Since it was on a stand, there was a mad dive to catch it, with Eridan and Kanaya both lunging forward and grabbing onto its side. Upon catching it, a clear-bodied, dark-haired, wavy-horned little grub, no larger than a loaf of bread, tumbled out from inside and into their outstretched arms. They looked at each other, then at the grub, then back at each other.

"That's a grub," Kanaya, rather stating the obvious-y, said as they both turned their attention to it. "And it's in our arms."

"And it's alivve," Eridan added, as the grub wiggled its pincers and turned its head so it looked straight at both of them. "And vvery cute."

They looked at it in silence for a little while, as it tried to explore their arms but instead just stared blankly at them both, before letting out a loud wail akin to an emergency siren, but more squeaky. It blinked a few times while doing that, then shut its tiny mouth and smiled at its parents. At this point, they carefully scooped it up and carried it over to the couch, where Eridan sat down and they put it in his lap. "Let me send pictures of this to everyone, okay?" Grabbing the phone, Kanaya took a quick picture of the grub curled up in his lap, and sent it out, before collapsing on the couch next to them. "Wait until everyone sees that. They're going to flip."

"Yeah, wwell, wwe knoww wwhat's goin' ta happen. Either Vvris and Tavv or Fef and Sol are gonna get the bright idea ta try this themselvves, and then they're gonna fuck it up, and wwe're gonna feel bad, so wwe'll end up doin' it for them." Eridan gently stroked the grub's head, to which it squeaked. "And I am not goin' through all that again for a grub that isn't mine." He looked down at the grub in his lap. "Evven if the end product is a real beauty."

"Oh, I know. We aren't taking part in that again for a long time." Kanaya reached over and put her hand underneath Eridan's chin, pulling his face close to hers so she could kiss him for just a few seconds, watching the grub the entire time. When she pushed him back, she smiled. "Or, not until we know we could handle raising another grub."

Eridan looked down at the grub, which was curled up and squeaking. "Wwhich wwon't be for a long wwhile, especially wwith all the heartache gettin' this one brought us." He went silent then, just stroking the grub's head until the squeaking stopped and only the faintest of breathing could be heard from it.

"I'll go get it something to eat. When it wakes up, I know it's going to be starving." Kanaya stood and walked into the kitchen, where the rustling of boxes could be heard. Eridan, meanwhile, just kept stroking the grub, watching as its clear body slowly gained color, turning a light purple in color by the time Kanaya came back. "Look at that color," she softly said, sitting back down while holding a small bottle full of a fruit-and-veggie mixture that she knew the grub would enjoy. "Such a peaceful and calm color. I hope it keeps that."

"You knoww it wwon't. It'll darken and be more like wwhat my blood is, or it wwill change and be more like your blood, but it wwon't stay this beautiful." He leaned down and kissed the very top of the grub's head, accidentally causing it to stir and begin crying. As he didn't know what to do, Kanaya took the grub, carefully holding it as she put the tip of the bottle in its mouth. Just like she assumed, it was very hungry, taking in every last drop of food.

When it finished, it promptly fell back asleep in her arms, and she, after admiring its cute little face and light purple body for some time, also dozed off, the excitement of the day getting to her. Instead of sleeping like them, Eridan just sat there and watched, letting the late afternoon fade to evening, and the evening to night. He still sat there, just watching in awe, when his phone rang. After midnight at this point, he didn't know what to expect, so seeing the message that said "nice grub, but we can do you one better," he smiled and laughed, being careful to stay just quiet enough to not wake neither Kanaya nor the beautiful grub.

He guessed that while one form of grub watch was over, the next one had just begun.

* * *

A/N: I don't remember what exactly inspired me to write this, but all I remember is it was a request fic from someone and I didn't intend for it to be this big, but it got to be this long, and it even has a little sequel thing that's darker and sadder (even though the opening to this is pretty sad, not gonna lie).

I'll post that here sometime soon for you guys to read, and to wrap up the story a little. Even though I guess this ending is pretty good...whatever.

I don't own Homestuck, and I hope you enjoyed this little fic! (:

Signel


	2. Live Births

Her stage presence wasn't always the greatest, but when Jade had something to say concerning the state of her current ectobiology project, she could make up for her slightly-off posture and messy looks with the enthusiasm she possessed. "Three experiments are running as I speak," she gladly told the camera, "and all three will finish within three weeks of each other. One is being conducted in my lab, the other two on, uh, willing troll couples who sacrificed their time and possible well-being for the bettering of their race."

She twiddled her fingers at that point, looking down at the floor as if trying to conceal some sort of secret. When called out on this by the cameraman, she gave a concerned smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Well, neither couple was exactly _willing_, but I gave them the choice of this or being taken off government money, and they chose this." That wasn't how it went either, she remembered, but she wasn't going to tell the viewers of this update about how she threatened one couple with taking their dear apartment, and the other with the killing of their darling family pet.

The looks on all of their faces were still burned into her memory; she could clearly see Kanaya shaking her head before saying that they'd participate, earning herself a wide-eyed look from Eridan, and she could also remember Nepeta's teary exclamation that her and Karkat would take part, even though he stormed out of the room when she did so. Jade was smart enough to know what would get them to agree to it, and her plan had worked, down to the last small detail. She had just gotten back from New York City at the time this interview happened, having just started that third experiment (treatment number two, but number three took four weeks longer and was therefore occurring in the lab), and therefore remembered the incident in that apartment more than the one in the California home.

"You're goin' ta do wwhat?" Eridan had asked, grabbing Kanaya's hand. "Wwasn't your sick human-troll thing enough?"

Jade flashed him a genuinely goofy smile. "Didn't I tell you about this when I was here in January? I've got this needle, you see, and I need you to—"

"I remember this, and it's not happening. I don't care what we said then. It's not happening, and that's that. So what if you don't learn how well this form of troll reproduction works because of our denial." Kanaya, squeezing Eridan's hand, just gave Jade an icy stare. "We are not filling a bucket for you. You are not doing whatever it was you were going to do with said bucket. And, most of all, you are not sticking me with that needle."

"Well, you know what happens if you deny my experiment? We take your place." Jade crossed her arms over her chest and nodded. "This place becomes ours and you two and that kid of yours end up out on the street."

Even with the threat of homelessness hanging over his head, Eridan was set in his decision. "Wwe're not doin' it. That is fuckin' that. I don't care if you take our money, or our home, but as long as I havve Kan, you can take wwhatevver from me and I wwill be happy!"

"No..." Kanaya's voice got quiet, as she said things involving how this was the home that all their memories had happened in, and that losing it would be like losing a part of herself. She fell silent for a second, before shaking her head and saying, "We'll do it. It's not like we have any other choice."

"Kan, wwhat are you talkin' about? Wwe're not doin' it!" Eridan gave her a wide-eyed look, his mouth slightly open in shock. "There's no wway wwe are doin' this at all!"

She squeezed his hand again. "Yes we are. It won't be that bad, if losing this place is the alternative. We are supposed to be acclimating ourselves to human culture, and this is just another step to doing that." This was when she sighed. "Had we known that we'd be in this situation eighteen years ago, we might not have gotten ourselves wrapped up in it, but now we have to continue this transition to becoming gray-skinned, horned humans."

"No, silly, there are no such things as gray-skinned and horned humans!" Jade exclaimed, correcting the mistake. "There are gray-skinned humans, but none with horns. If you mix human and troll genes, the horns are eliminated, but the resulting child has a grayish tint to their skin that proves they're half-breeds." From the bag on her shoulder, she pulled out a long needle. "But since you're both trolls, we've got to worry about those pesky horns, now don't we?"

The cameraman, noticing Jade's trip down memory lane, asked her to talk about what she was thinking of. "Oh, just one of the reactions to this experiment," she lied. "When I talked to one of the groups about taking them off of the government money, they freaked out and said I was trying to destroy their life, when I'm really just doing what the government asks of me."

That wasn't how it went, even if she didn't remember exact specifics. She had explained the process by which the experiment would occur, and all she had gotten in response were blank, disgusted looks. "I'm going to have to watch, yeah," she said, a tiny bit of disgust in her voice, "but that's because no buckets are involved and I have to know if you're doing it like I'm telling you to."

"Fuck no, Jade. We're not even going to think about it." Karkat lifted his fist in a threat to punch her. "That is disgusting and you are fucking nasty for even suggesting it."

"It's not like I haven't seen troll naughties before! It's not even that interesting to me anymore, to be honest. So yeah, you guys are built differently than humans, but it's not like I'm a sick freak who gets off on looking at you guys." She sighed, before looking behind the two trolls that stood before her and spying the blind gray cat that lived with them. "But, let's make a deal. If you don't do this for me, I'll take Fluffy with me, and make myself a little wall ornament."

Nepeta's eyes widened and tears began streaming down her face at the mere mention of killing her cat. "We will do whatever you want us to! Just don't hurt Fluffy!" Karkat stormed out then, cursing up a storm about how "fucked up" the whole situation was.

"Yeah, doing experiments because the government wants to make the trolls pretty much humans is fun, but it's really hard sometimes." Jade laughed, giving both the camera and the man controlling it a big smile. "Especially since this one is going to end with me doing the work both in the lab and the field completely alone." She could feel her eyes tearing up just thinking about that, but she pushed the sad thoughts aside. "It's going to be a lot of fun, though!"

* * *

"Oh, mister nubby horns, you're awake and ready to play, aren't you?" Karkat groaned and put a pillow over his head, trying to drown out Nepeta's cutesy talking. "Well, come on and let's go, so we can get to know each other even better!" He felt the weight shifting on the bed, and once she was up and out of the room, he removed the pillow and got up himself. He went to follow her into the sunny living room, but a meow caught his attention. Right in front of his feet stood Fluffy, blindly walking around in search of him.

"Come here, you dumb cat," he said, picking her up and scratching behind her ears. "We've got to test out your little talent, okay?" She purred, and he set her down. When her paws hit the floor she broke into a run, straight into a different room, where the computer was. Karkat smiled, following the cat inside, where he was very happy to notice Fluffy pressing a button that illuminated the screen. "Good job, cat. If something happens, you've got to do that for me. Understand?" The cat mewled and hit the button again, and an empty shot of Jade's ectobiology lab appeared on screen. "Glad she's not there. I'd rather not talk to her right now. Shut it down."

Fluffy hit the button again and it all slowly turned off. "Very good job, cat. You've got the power to save your mom right there." Karkat picked the cat up again and carried her out of the room, putting her down in the bedroom before going out into the living room, where Nepeta was sitting, but he didn't even pay attention to her. Instead he went into the kitchen, pulling out some bread and putting it in the toaster. "You want anything, Nepeta?" he asked.

"No, Karkitty! Me and mister nubby horns are fine out here!"

When his toast was done, he pulled it out and quickly ate it, and finally went into the room to join Nepeta on the couch. "Good. That toast was shit."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad!" she said, leaning over to rest her head on him. "Besides, me and mister nubby horns probably wouldn't like the food if we had it. He's kind of mean when it comes to letting me eat." Karkat felt the smile on his lips, and he looked at his beautiful girlfriend for the first time all morning. Well, he thought she was beautiful. She would have argued that she looked horrible.

"How's he treating you today? You mentioned something about him wanting to play? What's up with that?" His eyes focused on hers, before slowly moving down her body. There was nothing really to comment on until he got down to the top of her very swollen stomach, where a small little bulge was poking out. "Ugh, he's living up to his nubby horn name, isn't he?"

She squealed and put her hand over the bulge, trying to push it back in. "Yes, but...it doesn't hurt too bad! He's just playing around today. I wish Jade had warned me that this would happen, though, I don't like it..."

"Yes, well, she was too busy starting this experiment to warn you about all the fucking side effects. Then again, it's been for-fucking-ever since she started it."

"Two weeks until it's over, Karkitty!" she purred, pressing her cheek up against his shoulder. "Two weeks until we're done and we have mister nubby horns to hold and care for!"

He groaned, shaking his head. "That's two weeks too long for me. Fuck, why did we agree to this damn situation? I'm tired of you being huge and bitchy and not the Nepeta I love."

"I'm tired of not being myself." Nepeta yawned, pushing down harder on her stomach. "And I'm tired of his nubby horns poking me." She sat there for a moment, pushing against the horn that was trying to poke through, before realizing everything that Karkat had said. "Hey, wait! I'm not bitchy! I'm quite the opposite of bitchy, really!"

"Sure you are. I wish I could believe that, except I've heard all your complaining and whining and, sorry to say, you're really bitchy now. I just can't wait for that to be over. Getting to actually take care of a grub and not the beast you've dubbed 'mister nubby horns' will be nice."

"But he actually is a grub!" She grabbed Karkat's hand and put it under hers, which she then pressed down with. "See, don't you feel his horn?"

Karkat sighed. "Yes, I feel his horn. It's nubby, just like mine. Wait, that's where you got the fucking bright idea to call him mister nubby horns. I forgot." The use of sarcasm made him laugh, but Nepeta was not pleased with it. "Oh, sorry, did I hurt your feelings? Didn't mean to."

"You're a jerk sometimes, Karkat. But a good jerk. I'm glad that I'm doing this with you by my side. You've made this experience actually bearable." She snuggled close to him, before jerking upright abruptly. "Gah, that hurts. Stop it, nubby."

"Nepeta, is something wrong?" Karkat asked, to which she shook her head and smiled. "Okay, well, if he's hurting you, I'd go lay down in bed and see if that helps. I'll just be out here getting some work done. Fluffy will keep you company."

She stood up. "Thanks, Karkat. I love you." With that, she made her waddling way to the bedroom, leaving Karkat alone on the couch, his head full of all the possible things that could be wrong. But Jade hadn't warned them about anything, so he figured that the grub was just being active, and tried to push the thoughts out of his mind.

* * *

The hum of the computers behind her, Jade tried to focus on the book she was reading, but all her mind was drifting to was whether or not she should check on her experiments. After all, just the day before, her perfect timing of four "lives" in four weeks had been cruelly shot in the foot. Well, to be honest, it had been shot down months before, when she had been shown the ultrasound that spelled disaster to not only her timing, but her dreams of maybe one day getting to be romantically linked to John.

"Can you believe it, Jade?" he had asked, when she had given it back to him. "Guess it's gonna be five lives in four weeks, huh?"

"Five lives...yeah. Congrats, bro." She remembered crying about it that night, while he was upstairs going on and on about how he was "so excited" that him and Rose, his wife of a good five years, would be adding not just one, but two little lives to their family. Those tears had hurt more than anything, more than watching him get married or any of that. She remembered being upset, and wanting to taint the experiment because of it, but this experiment was more than just creating lives because John had. It was helping a species flourish.

And there she sat, reading the book about island flora and fauna, listening to the computers, and thinking about how her timing was ruined. Now there wasn't going to be exactly a week between them all ending, she realized. The lab-based one was to end a week from that day, with the one in California ending a week after that, and then the New York one ending a week after _that_. Perfectly planned, except for the entrance of the Egbert twins weeks earlier than expected.

A loud and unexpected beep broke Jade from her brooding, and she jumped up, spinning to face her incubation chamber, where her replica troll female body was resting. She had created that with the help of the mother grub, which still sat in its normal spot, having never once moved in the fifteen years it had been in the lab. "Okay, what's going on with you today, little grub baby," she said to herself, lifting the shade that enveloped the chamber. "Can't be anything too bad, because..."

Her words trailed off as she looked at the sight that awaited her.

The grub that she had been using as her experiment had chewed itself out of the replica troll, and was staring at her with large eyes, its face and horns covered in its "mother's" blood, its transparent body allowing her to see all the blood that was pooled underneath it. "Oh my god, what happened? You weren't supposed to come until next week! Did I mess up my calculations? Is...is this how you guys are going to get out of your mothers?" Her eyes widened and her face paled. "Fuck! I have two trolls out there that are about to face-"

She was cut off by one of her computer screens turning on by itself, and a grainy picture of a green blob appearing on it. As the picture became clearer, the look on Jade's face became more and more horrified. The blob was a cat, a normally gray cat named Fluffy, that was coated in its owner's blood. "Oh no. No no no. Fluffy, please don't be actually covered in Nepeta's blood...please don't..."

"Jade? Jade can you hear me?" The voice belonged to Karkat, and it was shaky and panicked. "Jade, I just walked into my bedroom and Nepeta's dead and there's a grub and I don't know what to do. What's going on?"

She closed her eyes for a second, feeling the tears welling up in them. "Karkat," she finally said, "I'm so sorry. I'll be there right away."

"No, tell me what's going on. Why is she dead? Why is my matesprit fucking dead?"

"Because I miscalculated somewhere. The grub was ready and we weren't. I'm really sorry for your loss, but I need to to take care of that grub while I get down there. I know, you won't want to handle it because it's the reason Nepeta's dead, but you have to. It's part of her."

She heard him swallow deeply before speaking again. "You better get down here and explain yourself."

"I will, I will." And in the panic of this actually having happened, Jade completely forgot that she did have another couple to warn about this cruel fate.

* * *

Two weeks passed, and not a single word was ever told to Eridan and Kanaya about what had happened to Nepeta. In fact, they were never even warned that there was a very negative outcome that was possible. They had just been living their lives as normally as possible, and on that night that marked the two week anniversary of where it all went wrong, they were finally given a little bit of insight.

"Yes, wwhat do you wwant?" Eridan asked, answering the phone when he saw that it was Jade calling.

"Listen, I know tonight's a big night and everything, but I really need you guys to get out here like, now." There was, like when she was speaking to Karkat through the computer, panic in Jade's voice. "There's something that might happen as early as tonight, and I need to be there to prevent it from happening."

Eridan paid no attention to the worry. "Wwhat? Wwe're not missin' this. Wwe'vve spent fourteen years raisin' the kid. Wwe aren't missin' his promotion thing."

"Yes, I understand, your son moving from middle to high school is a big deal, but I'd think the life of your unborn grub would be more important."

"Jade Harley, you tell me wwhy you think that something that isn't evven alivve yet is more important than wwhat is, or I wwill hang up."

She groaned. "Okay, you know what? There will be a car waiting outside Ayanak's school. He gets his award thing, you go out there and get in it. There is no time to wait for all his friends or whatever. You need to get out here as soon as possible, and by going to that, you might be fucking yourselves over."

"Yes, wwell, right noww, his promotion thing is important. Wwe'll see him, and then wwe'll go see you. Fair enough?"

"Yes. Now don't fuck it up, Eridan. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Kanaya's life hangs in the balance here." Without another word, Jade hung up, leaving the troll to shake his head.

"What's wrong? Did she want us to miss the promotion?" Kanaya slowly asked, her breathing a bit labored as she tried to situate herself comfortably. "Because we aren't. I'll be fine long enough to go to that. Little grub's getting kind of mean now. I don't think it likes being in there anymore."

He shook his head and set down his phone. "She wwants us to leavve as soon as Ayanak gets his awward thing. Wwish wwe could wwarn him that wwe wwon't be there after to take pictures, but wwhatevver. She sounded a bit frantic."

"She's probably just worrying about me. No big deal." She leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I mean, she should worry about me. I'm one of her precious experiments. I mean the world to her."

"No, you mean the wworld to me." He reached over to her and laid his hand on her stomach. "And not just because of the grub in there. Because of evverything wwe'vve done the past many years."

From down the hall, a short, small-horned, gray-skinned boy came walking. "Ugh, why do I have to wear a tie?" he asked loudly, startling Kanaya. "I hate dressing up. Can't you guys just take me with you and let me miss this thing?"

"Ayanak, no, wwe can't. You can handle this."

"But Dad, I can't! Didn't you hear about what happened to the Strider kid at his promotion? That was terrible! I don't want to be booed like he was, just because I'm not human!"

Recovering from being startled, Kanaya said, "Come on, Ayanak, at least your friends think your name is that ridiculous Aaron. I cannot believe they have bought that we have human names. Does your father look like an Eddie to you? And me, do I look like a Kristen or whatever it is they call me?"

"No, Mom, you don't...okay, fine. I'll do it and get on the plane after and go visit Justice and his dad and everything, and then you guys will come get me there and you'll have the new grub and we'll be a happy family." Ayanak smiled, before kissing his mom on the cheek. "I'm gonna get ready and then DaShaun's parents should be here to take me to the school. I can't believe I'm going to be done with middle school!"

"Wwe can't believve it either, son," Eridan said, his heart warm with the fact that he could call that kid, who they had raised from an egg that had only survived because of being stuffed in Kanaya's shirt, his son. "Noww go get ready, Remember that wwe're proud of you."

That night, sitting in the middle school gym watching little Ayanak, the smallest in his class, walk across the stage to get his award, everything seemed fine. But the moment they got up to leave, Eridan grabbing Kanaya's hand to help her down the stairs from their seats, something seemed wrong. She was complaining about hurting really badly, and it just didn't sit right with Eridan. When they got to the floor, they both made eye contact with Ayanak, who showed them his award, labled with his _real_ name, not his fake human one, and they tried to smile, but the worry was too strong.

"Mom!" he shouted, jumping from his seat, disrupting the ceremony. He didn't care though, and he made it to where Kanaya was barely standing, her body shaking from all the pain she was in. "Mom, you need to leave. Now."

"I know, but it hurts. It really does. Help me out, will you?"

The little boy nodded, and he grabbed her other hand, and together, the three of them made it outside. "Mom, Dad, I love you guys," he said, kissing both of them, "but I need to get back in there. I'll see you guys again in Texas!" And with that, he ran back inside and they were left looking for the car Jade had sent for them.

By the time they had found it and were situated inside, Kanaya was complaining about how much more it was hurting. Her complaints got louder and more violent the whole way to the airport, before she fell oddly silent. In the dark, Eridan couldn't see her, but he could smell something that he shouldn't have been.

Blood.

"Kan? Kan, tell me wwhat's wwrong!" he shouted. "Are you okay?"

"It hurts, Eridan...feels like it's ripping right through me..."

He fumbled through his pocket for his phone, and when he had it, he used it to illuminate the scene. There, instead of the floral front of Kanaya's dress, was a stain of jade green blood and the sight of two horns. "Uh, Kan? It feels like it because it is. Let me call Jade and ask her wwhat to do."

"Hurry up, please! It's getting worse, and everything's starting to become unbearable!"

The number he needed was on speed dial, and he pressed the phone to his ear as soon as it was connected. When she picked up, he quickly said, "Wwhen wwere you gonna wwarn us it wwas gonna tear through her, and wwhat do wwe do?"

"Eridan...I'm so sorry...there's nothing we can do now. You need to get here. Keep her alive. That's all I can say."

Between the sobs that Jade was emitting and the breathing from Kanaya that was quickly growing faint, Eridan truly felt lost. "Wwill she be alivve wwhen wwe get there?"

"Will she? If you keep her alive."

Her hand reached for him, and he gave her his. "I can't believve this. I'm going to lose her, and it's your fault! Wwhat do I tell Ayanak? That you killed his mom?"

"I'm not going to die...but I am going to sleep..." Kanaya's eyes closed and her grip on Eridan's hand weakened until her fingers were no longer strong enough to hold his. He looked at her, listened more to the cries coming from Jade, and promptly burst into tears. Meanwhile, that pesky grub made its way out of its mother's body, completely covered in the green blood. Its eyes focused on Eridan, and it opened its mouth, squeaking in response to seeing him.

"Wwhat, you're alivve? Get awway from me, you dirty creature!" he hissed, picking it up and throwing it to the floor, where it began to squeal and cry. "Wwait...Kan! I just hurt our grub! I'm sorry!" He bent over and picked it up, putting it back on its mother. "There. All better."

When they got to the airport and the car was lit up, he saw the gaping hole in Kanaya's abdomen and realized just how far from better it really was.

* * *

A/N: I know I am cruel for even writing that, but, hey. It wanted to be written, and that's how it shall be.

I don't own Homestuck because I am not Andrew Hussie.

Signel


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